Welcome to Room 101

[Oscar]

So here you are on Room 101, please make your choices. I'm going to give a go at imposing some rules which I'm sure will get ignored plenty:
Give explanations. Lists are a bit dull and ranting is good for the soul.
Don't judge other people too seriously by their choices, this isn't a religion thread and rather than striving for perfect reason, the point is to snarl and bitch about things you don't like.
Every new poster gets to choose which of the previous posters choices actually go into room 101. So who ever posts after this decides whether cars go in or stay out.

Most cars - yeah, well sod it, if I could I would. This isn't just an environmental thing and I'm not purely being a bastard for the sake of it, I really want to know what kind of difference it would make if most cars disappeared, in terms of noise, asthma, food allergies and skin problems (I'm not saying that cars cause these things, I'd just be curious to see if they are a factor) obesity and community spirit. I'd allow cars for the disabled to stay and of course buses and trains would be massively improved, but all cars and taxis would be gone. This would also mean that politicians have to take public transport to work, fabulous.

Newspapers - as the years stumble by, newspapers seem to rely less on investigating the news and more on crowd-pleasing and shock tactics to sell themselves. And does all the information we have about the world help us to be happier or to do anything useful in the world? I would say no, it just leads to excess guilt and paranoia. As with the cars, I'm curious to know what would actually happen if all the national newspapers disappeared.

Advertising - all of it. So that the insidious sneering and gloating would stop. So that people would stop overworking themselves into a miserable wretched state trying to buy crap that an advert made them feel inadequate for not having. And for those who think "Only stupid people actually get fooled by adverts, I never buy things I see in adverts anyway" that doesn't matter at all, advertising is designed to make you feel inadequate, over-aware of your faults and the shortcomings of your life, they do this so that you will buy the products of course, but whether you buy them or not, those feelings are likely to have snuck into your brain and nested there.

Whistling - at least if someone is listening to a loud walkman or talking on the phone, I know that the person is in some way enjoying themself. Whistling is just an irritating noise that brings no pleasure to the whistler and extreme murderous rage to me. I want all whistling to go into room 101 and then I can laugh joyously as whistlers blow and spit silently.

Irony - I'm not talking about the proper meaning of irony, the twist in the tale that changes tragedy into comedy. I'm talking about the lazy comedian version whereby the unfunny can make the same ignorant bigoted jokes that have been made by twats for centuries without adding any twist or awareness to it, but claim that it isn't bigoted because it's ironic. I suspect that if you remove that word and its current use from comedy you will show up the "cutting edge" comics to be the untalented, unthinking and unpleasant hacks they are.

So now, your turn...

[Mister Cairo]

I took ten trains today (that's as many as five two's) and on the eighth one had to endure some tit whistiling by the doors. I would put whistling in. Myself, I'm not able to whistle, except out my bum, which I did today in various parts of London. So I would keep in in. Most cars...yes, but there should be a small motor pool in case people have to drive to the Highlands or suchlike, run by the DWP. They could spend the money not used on advertising on this. I'd keep newspapers out, however, as some people can't afford a TV or the net but can afford a newspaper now and again. They'd be devoid of any world news and might spend more time going on about "the asylum seeker people".

Mine:

Books that have been re-covered because a film has been made of them: With a big picture of the film on the front, in case people are too thick to seek out the book. This has happened to The Last King of Scotland and numerous others. As if people who go to see films are unused to books. It also creates the idea that books never sell without films.

Columns where the writer just witters on about their home life: For example, Our Woman In Croutch End. I don't care if Matthew has been pulling rabbits out of the hutch and trying to make you eat them, or if you are unable to park in Tesco's because of your new hair extensions. Neither does anyone else.

The special relationship. The idea that Britain and the USA should have a special pact because...well, it seems it boils down to "they are very powerful, speak the same language, let's ally with them". Entirely wrong on principle, a one-side affair which means we help fight their wars, have their listening posts (Menwith Hill, Echelon) and have our televisions saturated with American films and programmes. I don't object to good ones like The Wire or My Name Is Earl, but Channel 5 even runs American basketball! Who wants to watch that in the UK? If you took the News and Colin and Justin away, Channel 5 could be a TV channel in America. And we never see much good European comedy or drama! Spiral, for example, is only on restricted BBC 4. And Blair says it is anti-American to criticize the special relationship. That's shutting down debate.

Charity Muggers: Foul people who abuse passers-by who do not sign up to their £15.99 a month schemes. How do they know how much money these people have. Tacitics include swearing, thrusting pens at people, acting all hurt and telling people they hope they get cancer so they know what it is like. And of course the parent mugger company gets money that could have gone to breast cancer or wherever. These people are like a rash. And of course it's all for charity, as the hateful directors remind us whenever someone complains. If that's the case, will we see sponsored rapes and charity robbers.

People who spend their entire time whinging about how bad Britain is and how every  other developed country (bar America) is a paradise.

The UK was ranked 18th on the Human Development Index, has a mostly free press, a health service and an education system. Some people see their familes killed by other tribes in Africa. These people seem to think that other places in Europe have no crime, choclate houses, excellent schools full of children with apples and full employment. There are massive problems within the UK, focus on them, don't just go "Oh, this country is a craphole". Some of these people don't even vote to try and change this.

[quadraspazzed]

Charity Muggers: Foul people who abuse passers-by who do not sign up to their £15.99 a month schemes. How do they know how much money these people have. Tacitics include swearing, thrusting pens at people, acting all hurt and telling people they hope they get cancer so they know what it is like. And of course the parent mugger company gets money that could have gone to breast cancer or wherever. These people are like a rash. And of course it's all for charity, as the hateful directors remind us whenever someone complains. If that's the case, will we see sponsored rapes and charity robbers.

Yes, put them in! Here's the thing though - in a lot of cases, these people are not working for the charity per se, but rather for an outsourced company hired by the charity to do the legwork.

A couple of my mates did this for the Red Cross (well, for the company employed by the RC) in Australia. Their descriptions of their working conditions were those of some bizarre 'teamwork' cult - with the person who sold the most sign-ups each week doing a 'lap of honour' around their workmates and other fucking insane shit. In the actual 'muggers' defence, they work solely on commission, so I can understand why they can be aggressive. I'd put the companies rather than the actual workers in Room 101.

Also, my cousin recently moved to Wales and he started working for another of these (selling not-BT phone contracts door-to-door or something), and it turns out it was run by the same company my two mates had worked for is Aus. And the rituals were somewhat similar. He left after three days.

These people are going to take over the world I tells ya! I wish I could remember the name of the damn company.

[Labian Quest]

One of those charity muggers tried to charitably mug me the other day with the line 'Can you do that magic thing where your legs stop moving?' -  I don't know if the usual spiel she'd been using hadn't been working and she'd decided to come up with her own material or what, but as per usual it took me about 10 steps to come up with the reply 'What, you mean paraplegia?' but by then it was too late. Shucks.

[Timmy O'Toole]

Spiral, for example, is only on restricted BBC 4.

Someone else who watched it! It was genuinely good, and I felt very smug in an "oh look at me I'm watching something in French aren't I clever?" way.

[Mister Cairo]

Spiral, for example, is only on restricted BBC 4.

Someone else who watched it! It was genuinely good, and I felt very smug in an "oh look at me I'm watching something in French aren't I clever?" way.

I never got to see it because I was abroad while it was on, and I keep forgetting to check back at the BBC 4 listings. It's so annoying you can't get it on DVD in the Uk either.

[pillockandtwat]

Um, nobody really answered Mr Cairo properly, I thought.

I'd put all his suggestions in, apart from the whinging one. Whinging is what this country's all about (I'm even whinging about his whinging about our whinging). The fact that he' s saying - shut up, you could have been born in the Sudan - shows how low we've sunk. It used to be - look, you could have been born in France.

I'd put in...er....

Carling lager
Christ we drink enough shit in this country but this one takes the biscuit. Belong, the ads trumpet. Conform, more like, you cunts. Bland horrible shit and proud of it.

Speed cameras
Did you know that the UK law on speed cameras contravenes your basic human rights? It doesn't recognise the right to silence, or what the US would call the Fifth Amendment. If they get your number, they write to you and ask you if it was you driving. You can't answer without incriminating yourself, and if you don't answer you're punished as a criminal. The right to silence : it's a right Britain gives to murderers, but not motorists.

(Actually the Grand Chamber of the ECHR at Strasbourg is deciding on this at the moment. If they resepct the right to silence: bye bye speed cameras).

Also, I got done the other day, bastards. It's the fucking arbitraryness of it that gets me.

Cunts that like speed cameras
They can fuck off as well. I mean, do you know what an "absolute offence" is? Let me tell you, it's a fucking horrible legal concept.

Life just going on and on without one being in it
Could we have an apocalypse please? It totally extinguishes the problem of mortality, because we're all off at once. We were doing so well in the Cold War, and now it's just fucking amateur time.

I had this dream once where the bomb was dropping and my girlfriend wanted to flee the blast radius and try to survive but instead I held her hand and walked with her into what would be the epicentre, where we would be atomized painlessly.

[Eight Taiwanese Teenagers]

Carling lager
Christ we drink enough shit in this country but this one takes the biscuit. Belong, the ads trumpet. Conform, more like, you cunts. Bland horrible shit and proud of it.

Carling definitely goes in. Especially because of the advert with the starlings because it looks so nice and cool and naturey, then has the horrible "conform" message - be one of the flock, drink this shite, SHUT UP.

Speed cameras do not go in to room 101, because people should drive more slowly.

My entries:

1) People who think they know what irony is and that other people are wrong

* Tragic (or dramatic) irony occurs when a character onstage is ignorant, but the audience watching knows his or her eventual fate, as in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet.
   Socratic irony takes place when someone (classically a teacher) pretends to be foolish or ignorant, but is not (and the teaching-audience, but not the student-victim, realizes the teacher's ploy).
   Cosmic irony is a sharp incongruity between our expectation of an outcome and what actually occurs.

H. W. Fowler, in Modern English Usage, had this to say of irony:

   Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear & shall not understand, & another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more & of the outsiders’ incomprehension.

2) Fancy dread What can I say? Fancy dress parties are usually very fun, it gives everyone someting to talk to everyone else about, and adds a sense of getting away from normal life. But that terrible, horrible feeling you have when you're preparing to go to one, with the nagging fear that you've got it all wrong and that it's not a fancy dress party at all, is terrible. I have named it fancy dread.

[variant]

The Highways Agency's Matrix Signs/Variable Speed Limits They frequently have incorrect information, they slow the traffic down so you get consatina (sp?) effects and in the few occaisions they are correct it is so baltantly obvious that it's just offensive, eg 'Fog'.

I quite like fancy dress parties (vicarious existence and all that) and there was no reason given so I don't think they should go in.

[Eight Taiwanese Teenagers]

I quite like fancy dress parties (vicarious existence and all that) and there was no reason given so I don't think they should go in.

I've edited my post a fair bit - what do you think now?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

-People who complain endlessly about trivial things like cyclists/the price of petrol/political correctness and are totally apathetic towards significant ones.. I think this belies a latent selfishness and simple-mindedness that shows just how little some people give a shit about the welfare of anyone who isn't directly related to them. Before any clever clogs start, I'm in favour of complaining about trivial things too- just not that and then an utter dull-minded attitude towards world affairs and things that are genuinely significant.

-Received Opinion- If you use the exact same phrases from newspapers when talking about politics, eventually someone will notice and destroy you. The only reason this is so prevalent in this country is that everyone reads the newspapers and instead of contrasting with other news outlets, is happy to let one privately-owned agenda led 'news' spoon-feed them opinions. It requires very little effort. This occurs from  pub-rantings up to wealthy dinner parties and if you bother taking an interest in politics you can see it a mile off.

-High street clone stores- They abuse their authority, make the country a more boring, uniform place, send local shops and local entrepreneurs out of business and crush any sense of individual well being and happiness.

-Street accosters- Of all kinds. If wanted to give to a charity, get broadband, or start to believe in a religion, I certainly wouldn't do it on a fucking street on the words of a commission-driven gonk in a cheap suit.

-Lifestyle magazines- Don't tell people what to wear. Or else I'll have the suitation like yesterday where I walked past 11 women in a row who were wearing pretty much the same thing- clunky boots, dark tights, a short denim skirt, an oversized belt and a crap handbag. The fashion itself isn't the worst trend that's ever happened, the most annoying thing was how they all wore it, and presumably were aware that they looked the same, and enjoyed it. I hate virtually everything about lifestyle magazines. The fashion, the scumbag celebrity gossip, the cynical demographic-grasping editorial. This applies to mens and womens lifestyle magazines from Nuts to Marie Claire.

[variant]

Actually thinking about fancy fress parties has brought back a horrible childhood memory when my dad went to one and his costume was fairly racist. If that memory can go with them, I'm all for sticking Fancy Dress/Dread parties in the room.

[Mister Cairo]

I strongly agree with all of Shoulders' choices, especially Recieved Opinion. If we're all watching TV together, my dad will often make comments on the news based on what he has read in the newspapers, as if he's giving a presentation. It's quite frustrating when he says stuff like "there's going to be a romanian invasion, I read it in the Daily Express". That's the problem with the media, people don't consider WHY certain stories are being published and alterior motives. Perhaps concerned groups should put out a leaflet telling everyone who owns the media and giving Chomsky's Five Filters. Some of my opinions I can't find anywhere in the media, I just consider the situation and try and talk to people about it, if I can.

He's one of those people who will sulk if you argue with him so just about every time we're all watching the BBC News (which in itself is annoying) I have to listen to him parroting the right-wing press in a smug way. "Look at what I learnt to think today, family! I suppose you've all been to busy to learn about the world!". No, I read the papers and BBC News online every day, and LOVE reading about current affairs, I just don't parrot what I read.

[Abbatoir worker]

Seconding - LIFESTYLE MAGAZINES.  The concept of 'fashion' altogether... if you buy and read this and dress and paint your face and paint your house and cover your cushions and cook your food in this way then you are 'in'.  You are one of the cool kids, you belong (belonging again).  If you do any of these things any other way you are 'out', for which read: poor, ignorant, unclean, uncouth, unworthy.  If you buy into this ethos you are immediately destroying all your human potential for adventure and originality and non-judgemental warmth towards other humans.  To me it seems tragic that so many young men and women are allowing themselves, their one unique self, to get swallowed up in a homogenised mass of high street non-culture.

Adding - THE OBSESSION WITH 'HEALTH' - see sickasapike's lunch, passim.  Look, as Malcolm Middleton says, 'we're all going to die'.  For hundreds of years we all ran around drinking nothing but mead and eating ergot ryemould for breakfast.  I am sick of the constant pressure and the guilt and pestering from the media about drinking, smoking and food.  Does the mass of the population have an inbuilt need to be puritanical about their neighbours?  Since the advent of the porn age and the subsequent impossibility of judging anyone based on their sexual predelictions has this need been sublimated into judging each other by cholesterol intake?  I'll say it again  - you're still going to have a horrible painful death if you jog and eat a mush made of pure antioxidants for every meal, it'll just be 20 years after mine, that is all.*

*apologies to Bill Hicks, natch.

[sick as a pike]

Adding - THE OBSESSION WITH 'HEALTH' - see sickasapike's lunch, passim.

If you do, please also note that I shall be returning to (more moderate) drinking and general quite-unhealthiness soon.
Stopping drinking for six weeks wasn't a desire to prolong my life by 20 years, it was because I was concerned about it ending in the next few years, judging by my blood pressure (180/110) and liver function test results.
Sorry if this is over-sharing but I don't want to get the reputation of being a committed health freak.

[Little Hoover]

Adding - THE OBSESSION WITH 'HEALTH' - see sickasapike's lunch, passim.  Look, as Malcolm Middleton says, 'we're all going to die'.  For hundreds of years we all ran around drinking nothing but mead and eating ergot ryemould for breakfast.

And that's why we died at the age of 20.

But still I agree, and I think, what's the point of living an extra few years, if it means your whole life is going be filled with having to excercise constantly and eat disgusting food.

[The Region Legion]

Mister Cairo - basketball is the single greatest competitive sport in the world, more channels should be showing it, so shut your noisehole.

[Go With The Flow]

2) Fancy dread...with the nagging fear that you've got it all wrong and that it's not a fancy dress party at all, is terrible.

Put a spare set of 'normal' clothes in the boot of your car, and then you're sorted!

[I Am The Walrus]

People who are constantly happy. For fucks sake, something must get you down. Here, look I'm tapping your head, does that annoy you? You cunt!

The glue/gum that holds free samples in magazines like FHM or Cosmo. All it does it stick the fucking pages together, and in a magazine like FHM people jump to conclusions.

People who say they hate Bob Dylan (and other artists) because they can't sing. THAT'S NOT THE POINT!

People who make a personal judgement of you based on the paper you read. Get your nose out of your own arse and see that it means nothing! I like The SUN!

People who make things more complicated than they really need to be. It was easy a minute ago now, I'm not just walking down to the shop am I? I have to go to the garage because some cunt wants phone credit.

The BBC's self promotion. For god's sake we know you have a website. Why would I really want to watch the episode of Dragon's Den I've just watched?

Throwaway TV. I now know why there are so many repeats! Because the programmes are so utterly shit that you forget you've seen them!

People who describe some types of music as "boring". There's no such thing!

Taxi driver's who don't know where they're bloody going! Why do you do this job?

The one person in the room that doesn't get a joke. Not worth the time explaining to one person.

Instruction Manuals. We bought the damn thing. I think we know how it works. And the English section is missing anyway!

People who constantly refer to their spouse/parter as My Wife/Husband/Girlfriend/Boyfriend. WHAT'S THEIR NAME?

Being asked "Extra Cold?" when ordering a lager. What does it matter?

[Shaun]

Adding - THE OBSESSION WITH 'HEALTH' - see sickasapike's lunch, passim.  Look, as Malcolm Middleton says, 'we're all going to die'.  For hundreds of years we all ran around drinking nothing but mead and eating ergot ryemould for breakfast.

And that's why we died at the age of 20.

No we didn't, and no it isn't, life expectancy numbers are heavily distorted due to very high infant/childhood mortality which was due to poor sanitation and lack of nutrition, rather than eating lot of unhealthy food. Stone age people who lived into their teens would live on average into ther 50s, but you would't guess than from the average life expectancy of all age groups.

Instruction Manuals. We bought the damn thing. I think we know how it works. And the English section is missing anyway!

What?

[Mister Cairo]

The BBC's self promotion. For god's sake we know you have a website. Why would I really want to watch the episode of Dragon's Den I've just watched?

What really gets me is when they advertise the news. Why?

I would like to see the BBC actually become accountable to licence payers.

[Little Hoover]

Yes I know, I was joking.
Regarding Horza I mean.

[The Duck Man]

I would like to see the BBC actually become accountable to licence payers.

The problem is most license-fee payers are cunts. See: HYS.

[SOTS]

I also agree with Shoulders' choice of Lifestyle magazines. All the fashion at the moment is so tiresome. And the shops will only sell all the crap that is "in style" at that time, meaning I can't find anything I want to wear.

And christ,  I wish girls would stop tucking their jeans into their boots. It looked crap in the first place, and now you all look the same as well! It's all rubbish!

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I wish girls would stop tucking their jeans into their boots. It looked crap in the first place, and now you all look the same as well! It's all rubbish!

I can't get my sister to stop doing it, regardless of the amount of times I make jokes about her going out to do some gardening. It just looks so shit- one of those things that just stands out as looking obviously shit. Who are these women copying anyway?

*My sister broke one of her boots trying to cram her jeans into it. How I laughed.

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

They're copying Luke Skywalker I think.  If the right girl does it, it looks very cute.

[trotsky assortment]

The BBC's self promotion. For god's sake we know you have a website. Why would I really want to watch the episode of Dragon's Den I've just watched?

What really gets me is when they advertise the news. Why?

I would like to see the BBC actually become accountable to licence payers.

I was talking with a mate about the licence fee the other day.  He said he thought the Beeb should start a pay-as-you-go program instead of the flat rate fee.  If that happened, I think I'd watch about ten quid's worth of terrestrial TV a year these days.